Luxury smartphone manufacturer Vertu recently unveiled the Ti, a $10,000+ Android phone that dazzles the eyes with its sapphire crystal, titanium, and leather frippery. Before Android, the former Nokia subsidiary was working on a luxury Windows Phone 8 device, but found “the complexity of building for Windows Phone” was just too much to handle. The company failed to explain just what they meant by that, so we leave you to ponder that for yourself.

Vertu was once a secretive division of Nokia, who discovered that there are people in this world who will drop loads of money on a device with mid-range specs, as long as it looks expensive. They spent the first four years of existence operating in isolation, developing smartphones running Symbian. Nokia decided it was not practical to manufacture devices using such materials as sapphire crystals, which take up to 2 weeks to grow in a lab, and so the division was sold off to a private equity firm.

With Symbian now a thing of the past, Vertu has turned to other operating systems, choosing to focus on Android "for the foreseeable future."

While most of us would not choose to spend $10,000 on a flashy, mid-range smartphone when we could get a top-of-the-line hero phone for literally one million times less, we're still happy that Vertu is in the phone business, as opposed to say the medical industry.

It would be heartbreaking to hear they gave up on trying to cure cancer because it was just too complex.

Its more for the sheikhs and such in the Arab countries that have more money than they know what do with. Its all about the status symbol, regardless of what the phone actually is. Heck they were feature phones for many years even with the advent of smartphones. These are the guys that spend $10k a night at the burj al arab (7 star hotel).

I think you can get cheaper rooms now (not completely sure), but years ago I heard $10k; its $50 to go across the bridge to look at the place. As to your point, what in this phone could cost $10k (ignore the obvious crystals and precious metals)? It all goes back to the status symbol. If you're staying there, you can afford it and are at the level of the other ridiculously rich people there.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll be at their level if I was filthy rich- gotta have a maybach, vertu phone, Ferrari, yacht, massion, etc... Maybe I don't need those things, for that matter will never have use for them. Maybe this is why God made me born poor, a server for the rich instead of a receiver. Its obvious God created this world as, only the strong survive.

Pretty much what I was thinking...Microsoft dictates the spec of the phone and for the longest time required things like a physical camera button (unless thats only removed as a req for wp7.8), while android you can do anything with, which allows for lower end/lazy handset makers to spit out stuff to the masses that just don't care.

You know what would be great? If you just do some research that takes about 2 minutes before ranting uselessly. The Vertu Ti comes with a dual core Snapdragon S4 CPU with 2GB RAM and an 8MP AF camera. It also has 64GB internal memory.

Because it's how they do business:
1. purchasing a lot of cheap knock-off smartphone from China,
2. making shinny cases designed by fashion designers,
3. smashing the original cases of those cheap knock-off smartphones to retrieve the internal components,
4. reinstalling the internal components into the new cases,
5. selling them for several thousand dollars to rich people.
And that's why they say that Windows Phone 8 is too "complex" - they fail to find any cheap knock-off Windows Phone from alibaba.com while Android knock-offs are everywhere.

You have to be an idiot if you but $ 10,000,- phone from someone who admits making a quality phone is too complex.
Because you dont get the Windows Phone license without meeting Microsoft's quality standard. Other then that making a Windows Phone isnt any more complex then making an Android phone. So it has to be the quality ensurance test that they fail to meet.
So they're stuck making Android phones because there is no standard on Android. Why someone would want to purchase a phone from such a company, let alone spend 10,000 on it is beyond me.

Such a ridiculous argument, that one. People don't just throw money at something because "its expensive". Instead, it is more about the status. You don't just buy a Ferrari because it is $300,000; you buy it because it says something about you. The vertu is neither a status symbol nor a good looking device. It is just overpriced crap. You'd have to be stuck in a delusional field to buy that thing.
And yeah, quality control - something you know Android doesn't have?

Dude I own a L920 myself but let's cut the fanboyism. What quality control are you talking about? You mean WhatsApp that uses background audio as a hack to keep WiFi on and sucks the battery dry? You mean the official Twitter app for WP8 that's a piece of turd?
And apparently people DO buy Vertu phones. Why else do you think they're still making them?

The quality (or lack thereof) of individual optional apps has nothing to do with the quality of the hardward/OS. Do you think there aren't crappy apps on other platforms? Vertu didn't say they went with Android because of the quality of the twitter app. They said they picked Android because making a WP (i.e. hardware) was "too complex."

What I find amusing about Vertu is how they go out of their way to obfuscate what few hardware specs they reveal. The thing is running a screen just barely larger than the iPhone 4's but at a resolution of 800x480. The only thing they say about the CPU is that it's a 1.7GHz dual-core, which likely means it's the outdated Snapdragon S3. It's running Android 4.0 which is sad for what's supposed to be a brand new phone.
It does use sapphire glass which, funny enough, isn't nearly as hard as Gorilla Glass and thus not as scratch resistant. But at least you can tell everyone it's sapphire.
And that's the point of this phone. The specs are irrelevant because few people take advantage of everything their phone can do anyway. But it's a status symbol that offers excusivity. This isn't merely an iPhone with a severely overpriced case. This is a phone that you can be positive almost no one on this planet owns. And these guys are willing to customize the phone to your desires. Then there's the consierge service as a constant reminder of how important and special the owner is.
Of course it's severely overpriced, that's to ensure that the plebians aren't going to walk into a shop and just pick one up. It's the same reason Louis Vuitton started raising prices, too many of the wrong people were walking around with their product. Yes, it's quite pathetic.

I really probably think its because MS told them to fuck off with their over priced crap phones, why would MS licence WP to have them put on these butt fuck ugly devices. Im sure if they would have came up with a good design for the phone and met widows hardware specs MS would have given them the ok.